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Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Two-Wheeled WonderThe glory of lungs, legs, and steelTHE BICYCLE IS A MASTERPIECE of physics. It harnesses human muscle power directly to that old-time marvel--the wheel--and yields a vehicle more energy efficient than any other devised, ever, by anyone. A human on a bicycle is more efficient (in calories expended per pound and per mile) than a train, truck, airplane, boat, automobile, motorcycle, skateboard, canoe, or jet pack. Cycling is more efficient than walking, which takes three times as many calories per mile. Pound for pound, a person riding a bike can go farther on a calorie of food than a gazelle can running, a salmon swimming, or an eagle flying.

Oh, and the bicycle is hugely democratic: It is equally available to all. That's why on the highways, byways, and bikeways in most of the world, the bicycle is the most ubiquitous transport vehicle. Bicycles outnumber automobiles almost two to one worldwide, and their production outpaces cars by three to one. Rush-hour traffic in China is dominated by these human-powered vehicles. Even in the wealthy cities of Europe and Japan, a large share of the populace gets around by bike. Only here is it treated as little more than a plaything. About 50 million U.S. adults (and 40 million children) ride their bikes at least once each year, but only about 2 million are regular bike commuters. (Read more.)

TARC raps on bike rackLouisville’s TARC employees hope a new rap video will teach bus riders how to use the bike racks that have been installed on many city buses, according to an agency spokeswoman.

The video, which features TARC employees singing and dancing, has only been released online, and there are no plans to pay for television advertising spots, said Nina Walfoort, a TARC spokeswoman. (Read more.)

Sunday, February 17, 2008

City's two-wheel transformationLondon is likely to become one of the most cycle-friendly places in the world, with a series of two-wheeler superhighways cutting a swath through traffic and congestion. Plans for the super-cycleways will be unveiled next week as part of an initiative to stimulate a 400% increase in the number of people pedalling round the capital by 2025.

At a cost of £400m, the 12 routes are intended to be the motorways of cycling and are likely to be emulated by other cities across the UK. Londoners without bikes will be able to use one of the city's free bicycles.

"We want nothing short of a cycling transformation in London," said the mayor, Ken Livingstone. "We are announcing the biggest investment in cycling in London's history, which will mean that thousands more Londoners can cycle in confidence, on routes that take them quickly and safely to where they want to go."

"This is about thinking what kind of city we want London to be and what we want it to look like," said Koy Thomson, from the London Cycling Campaign. "This proposals will transform London, making cycling more visible, and the really interesting thing is that cycling is now associated with a modern cosmopolitan city that is in control and at ease with itself." (Read more.)

Round and round they go: Region's bicyclersSacramento ranks high in terms of commutes; other reasons to pedal around aboundThe forgiving terrain and climate create the perfect storm for a love affair with the bike in the Sacramento region. No better backdrop for the Amgen Tour of California, a 600-mile race that passes through Sacramento on Tuesday. "This is a great cycling region," said John McCasey, executive director of the Sacramento Sports Commission. "They clearly recognize that."

According to one survey, Sacramento ranked sixth nationally in cyclers who commute to work. Accounting for all the people who just get out and ride is not as easy, but the numbers are believed to be equally impressive.

Advocates who push for amenities such as bike lanes and racks make a difference, and so do cities and counties that hire people primarily to be responsible for bike issues, said Walt Seifert, executive director of the Sacramento Area Bicycle Advocates.

Any day on a bike reveals who is riding. They bike to work. They go for 40-mile workouts on a day off. They ride through midtown and downtown, lashing their Schwinns to racks in front of the library, the post office, the drugstore. They ride thousands of miles a year on any one in a collection of high-end bikes. Or, they ride deep into the night, laden with all their worldly belongings. (Read more.)

Prompted by the arrival this week of the Tour of California, Sacramento is abuzz about cycling. This extensive article examines all modes of bicycling in the Big Tomato, including recreational, competitive, and commuting.Image: Web capture.Visit:Paul Dorn's Bike Commuting Tips Site

Lance Armstrong unveils his new commuting bike shopCyclist hopes to encourage bike use in downtownIt's not about the bike sales. That from Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong, who plans in May to open a bike shop, commuting center, training facility and cafe in a 1950s-era building at the northwest corner of Fourth and Nueces streets.

"This city is exploding downtown. Are all these people in high rises going to drive everywhere? We have to promote (bike) commuting," Armstrong said Wednesday, gazing up at the towering 360 condos rising next to the site of his new shop. "This can be a hub for that."

Mellow Johnny's, named for the nickname Armstrong earned while wearing the Tour de France leader's "maillot jaune," or yellow jersey, will be housed in a yellow- and red-brick building next to the music venue La Zona Rosa. It is a block north of the Lance Armstrong Bikeway, a path that will cut east-west through downtown Austin.

Armstrong said he'd like to see Austin evolve into a place like Portland, Ore., where biking is part of the culture and people pedal to work, to restaurants and to run errands. "Walk outside, and the streets are lined with bikes--because they have a safe place to ride," Armstrong said of the city long known for its bicycle-friendly amenities and policies.

"There are times I ride in Austin, and I'm afraid of cars," Armstrong said. "Imagine what the beginner cyclist must feel like? I think (the mayor's) dream was this whole revitalization of downtown, which we're getting, but it's going to make it a lot easier if people can get around on bikes." (Read more.)

Road tales from a bike commuterTom Simon knows it made little sense to choose November to start commuting to work by bicycle. It can be cold, foggy, rainy, snowy and icy. It's dark both going and coming. But three or four days a week since November, Simon, 44, pulls on Lycra and neoprene and rides from his Felida home to work in Portland.

It's a trip of 17 miles each way to his office on Northeast Sandy Boulevard. But there are bike lanes most of the way and other bicyclists to commune with. "It's a relatively bike-friendly commute," he said. "The best part is the commuting community. You feel safe."

Simon, an engineer, is among a small but growing number of ­Vancouver commuters who brave the Interstate 5 Bridge from the bike lanes. Their numbers are expected to increase with higher gas prices, more highway delays and expanded bike capacity planned for the new I-5 bridge.

He rates both Vancouver and Portland pretty good for bike friendliness but wishes drivers would keep their eyes open. "Please give us room," he said. "We're your neighbors out there living the American Dream and commuting to work." (Read more.)

Monday, February 11, 2008

Businesses across Tucson may not know it, but 2008 could be the year bicycles become part of the work day. Employees may be riding to meetings or even to lunch on company-owned bikes. City Hall, the University of Arizona and Tucson's biggest private business, Raytheon Missile Systems, all have bike sharing on their mind.

A few dozen city employees have climbed aboard the new City Cycle bike-sharing program of the city Transportation Department, and the numbers are expected to grow.City Cycle started rolling in a few city offices four months ago. City workers can check out bikes and helmets at eight downtown locations and use them for work or lunch.

The official motivation for City Cycle is improving air quality and reducing fuel consumption, but that's not all Tom Thivener is shooting for as the city's bicycle and pedestrian coordinator. "Tucson is a bike-friendly community," Thivener said. "We want to get people who don't normally get on bikes to get on bikes to get the spinoff effect of more people maybe riding bikes to work." (Read more.)

Extensive article on bike sharing developments in Arizona, including links to several online resources. Rather than a citywide public bike-sharing program, Tucson appears to be developing a model of employers providing a fleet of bikes for their staff's use.Image: Web capture.Visit:Seattle Hospital Launches Bike FleetVisit:Paul Dorn's Bike Commuting Tips Site

America's killer commuteTo afford a middle-class lifestyle, many workers are trading in time at home for time on the interstate. No wonder Americans feel they are literally out of time.

Colin Deaso, 30, travels more than an hour each way from his home in Sterling, Va., to his financial-services job in Washington, D.C. He leaves the house at 6:30 a.m.; in the evening, he waits until he thinks traffic has cleared, getting home by about 7 p.m. "I despise sitting in traffic," Deaso says. "Don't get me wrong -- it's difficult to leave early in the morning. But we could afford a bigger home here."

Sacrificing hours each day on the road seems like a necessary trade-off to many Americans. Many are willing to move farther away from their jobs as long as weekend time is spent in communities they like, where they can afford the kinds of homes they want.

"We've seen decentralization for decades now," says Patricia Mokhtarian, a professor in the civil and environmental engineering department at the University of California, Davis. "People are having to travel further away not just to have a house but to have a three-bedroom house with a yard..." (Read more.)

As a survivor of a suburban childhood, I will never mow a lawn again, let alone pay for the "privilege" of yardwork with car payments and fuel bills. I'm happy to enjoy parks maintained by union-scale professional municipal gardeners.

Earlier I posted on the insanity of the built environment in much of the U.S.--a built environment of low-density sprawl, which discourages bicycling, walking, and transit use. Here we have a multimedia article on long distance commuting, reinforcing the diminished community resulting from sprawl. People who commute more than an hour each way are less likely to attend school board or city council meetings, are less likely to volunteer for a local organization, are less likely to attend a play or concert on a weeknight, are less likely to dedicate quality time to their families. Community suffers, alienation increases.

According to this article--the latest among many "super commuter" stories in recent years--people move to distant communities seeking larger homes, spacious yards, better schools, lower costs. Sprawl costs public agencies money to support, as new infrastructure and services are required. The result is cities deprived of resources to create affordable housing, clean and well-maintained parks, quality public urban schools, and effective low-cost transit.

Transportation bicycling flourishes in denser urban areas, as distances are reduced between destinations (schools, jobs, retail, entertainment.) Bike commuting is more appealing when your job is located in a convenient location, and not many miles away in a sprawling office park off the freeway.

"Extreme commuting" is a pathological symptom of the insanity of the built environment in the U.S. Life is too short to waste it cutting grass.Image: Web capture.Visit:Paul Dorn's Bike Commuting Tips Site

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Federal transportation legislation passed in the 1990s called for the integration of bicycling and walking into the transportation mainstream. Agencies were directed to accommodate walking and biking as "a routine part of their planning, design, construction, operations and maintenance activities."

It is remarkable how little progress Connecticut has made on this policy.

When challenged on this, DOT people have taken the position that biking and walking are recreation, not transportation. On the Canal trail, we funded a laser counter that recorded trail users at one piece of the system in Simsbury. From November 2006 to November 2007 it counted more than 110,000 individual visits with an overall gross traffic count of 167,424. It stretches credulity that this safe, multi-use trail linking Farmington Valley towns is not being used for commuting and short trips apart from recreation.

The state is in the process of selecting a new DOT commissioner. One test should be the understanding that biking and walking are not merely recreational activities, but integral parts of a well-balanced transportation system. There is irrefutable evidence that where trails have been built, commuting by bicycle has increased enormously. To put it succinctly, there is demand.(Read more.)

Many great civilizations have built enduring monuments to their insanity. The Chinese built their great wall, the Egyptians built their pyramids, and Americans have built the expansive freeway interchange. In this period of peak oil, climate change, and interminable traffic, it's long past time for sanity in our public policy.Image:Kaptain Krispy Kreme/Flickr.Visit:Paul Dorn's Bike Commuting Tips Site

Saturday, February 09, 2008

France’s innovative transport concepts fight traffic and strikes, making Paris a heaven on wheelsAmericans as a whole have not traditionally looked to France as a country of innovation. But transport has been an exception to this rule, with the TGV high speed train and the Paris metro, long seen as models in their industries, as well as the Smart Car, the squat ultra-compact that debuted in France and can now be seen on American streets.

But now in France, where traffic is a national headaches and transport and taxi strikes seem to hit as regularly as the seasons, people have taken innovation into their own hands. As a result, there is no country in the world where there are more unorthodox ways of getting around than in France, and in particular, Paris.

Just last summer, the city of Paris debuted a new self-service bicycle transit system called Velib’. The name is a combination of the French slang word for bicycle ("velo") and "liberte". As the name suggests, Velib’ gives people in Paris more freedom to help themselves get around the city.

Parisians and visitors alike can now pick up and drop off comfortable, well-maintained bicycles throughout the city. In Paris a 10,648 bikes were made available at 750 locations at the operation’s inception. By the end of 2007, Velib’ stations dotted Paris approximately every 900 feet for a total of 1,451 locations and 20,600 bikes. (Read more.)

Similar bike-sharing programs have often failed, mostly because of an incremental approach: "We'll put out 500 bikes...and if that succeeds, we'll add more." Such gradualism doesn't offer the density and convenience needed to make bike-sharing truly effective. To its great credit, Paris made a full-bore commitment to Vélib', creating a dense system of stations that has now made bike-sharing a popular part of the city's transportation fabric.

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

View From The Saddle - Can't we all just get along?I'm not the bicycle that I ride, the bicycle that I know some of you hold in contempt. You're not the car that you drive, the car that I am, from time to time, suspicious of as it creeps up behind me with malicious intent. We're both humans whose dogs love us and whose kids (assuming you have them) held or will hold us in serious disdain during part of their teen years.

So, "can't we all just get along?"

It's such a waste of energy not trusting that you aren't about to flatten me, and it must be a waste of energy for you to seethe as you watch me crank along in my colorful jersey, defying the rules of traffic congestion, and as you call home on your cell phone saying that you're going to late once again.

It's got to hurt when you glance over and see me cruise on through, silently, smile planted on my face, a smile that you might well mistake for smugness. But, really, that's not a smile born of a feeling of superiority. It's actually a smile born of the knowledge that I'm doing what I love while doing what I have to do anyway: getting from point A to point B with minimal fuss and impact on my environment. (Read more.)

Heartfelt plea for mutual understanding among road users from the Pacific Northwest. I've never understood the animosity some --certainly not all--motorists have for bicyclists. It's not as if we're the ones causing the traffic jam, the high gas prices, or the heavy car payments. One more bike, one less car, one more parking space. Win-win, right?Image: Web capture.Visit:Summer is here, leave your car at home, Seattle Post-IntelligencerVisit:Paul Dorn's Bike Commuting Tips Site

Matt Corwin was pedaling home from work on his usual route when he approached the University Bridge. A line of cars waited at the red light, as Corwin cruised past in the bike lane.

As he reached the intersection, the light turned green. An SUV turned right--into Corwin's path. Corwin squeezed his hand brakes. He stopped 2 feet from the SUV. The driver never saw him.

"I would have run into the side of his car, Corwin recalled. "It's not like he would have run over me. I probably would have bounced off. But still, it was pretty disconcerting."

"Right-hook" collisions, as riders call them, are among the most common risks of urban cycling. A bike enters an intersection going straight and gets hit by a right-turning car. It's a problem that cities such as Seattle must solve as they encourage thousands of people to switch from cars to bicycles. (Read more.)

Monday, February 04, 2008

Like many in the bicycle world, I was saddened to learn today of the death of Sheldon Brown, known to many as the "parts manager, webmaster and general tech guru" of Harris Cyclery in West Newton, Massachusetts. Brown was an intelligent and humorous cycling authority, generous with his knowledge and time. He received and responded to hundreds of emails a day, contributed to numerous bicycling listserves, and created a comprehensive cycling glossary on the Harris Cyclery website.

I first became aware of Brown in the mid-1990s, when web resources were scarce for novice bike commuters like myself. I discovered the Harris Cyclery site, self-described as "This site was established December 4, 1995...The first southern New England bicycle shop with a Web site!"

In part inspired by Brown's efforts at cyberspace cycling edification, I created my own Bike Commuting Tips site in 1997. My occasional correspondence with Brown commenced shortly after, as I sought his advice for my own cycling challenges, or directed my site's visitors to him. Especially those who inquired about obscure French vintage bicycles.

A few years ago, on a visit to my family in Massachusetts, I made the pilgrimage to Harris Cyclery to meet the grand cycling wizard himself. He had to be summoned from the shop's basement, where he was perhaps responding to his voluminous email. We chatted briefly, as he seemed to take delight in a visit from a fan (both of us impossible Francophiles), showing me some of the newest gadgets in the shop.

Brown's humor is apparent throughout his essays and contributions on the Harris Cyclery site. One of my favorite Sheldon Brown bon mots was his response to a question about how many bicycles he owned: "It's hard to say where the parts pile ends and the bike collection begins." (My paraphrase.)

Saturday, February 02, 2008

BRR: Braving the cold on a bikeA biker can easily spend a grand to stay warm for a short commute, a training ride or an outfit for Saturday's BRR trip from Perry to Rippey. "For a thousand bucks," said Donny Quixote of Rasmussen Bike Shop in West Des Moines, "you're on the road."

Scott Sumpter, creator of bikeiowa.com, bought a pair of biking boots that clip into his pedals for $270. So-called lobster mittens with two finger sleeves ($50 or more) have also helped. Extremities tend to get colder on a bike than running in the cold, he said.

Mark Wyatt of the Iowa Bicycle Association bikes the five miles into Coralville from North Liberty to work. "Layering is the secret," he said. "It's going to be much colder in the morning than at 5 p.m."

The key to body warmth is keeping the sweat away from your skin. That's why sweatshirts and other cotton garments that get wet eventually make you cold. A better option is workout clothing that wicks away sweat. It's available on many levels of spending. (Read more.)

Some people might cringe at the article's rather casual suggestion that spending $1,000 on technical cold-weather apparel is necessary to continue bicycling during winter. But some perspective. A grand is what, three car payments? This helpful article offers some--not all--the options for maintaining warmth during cold-weather bike commuting.

Another consideration: Clothing is durable. Sure, spending $300 for a waterproof, breathable, technical jacket might seem shocking. But imagine using that garment for, say, the next five years. Most of my technical bad weather clothing has lasted for many seasons.